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When Jane Met Dan, It Was Reality TV at First Sight

EARLY in the making of the adventure competition "Treasure Hunters," Dan Cutforth wondered what he and Jane Lipsitz, his producing partner, had gotten themselves into. By helicopter Mr. Cutforth approached a remote Alaskan glacier, one of the locations for the series. Instead of deserted terrain, he was surprised to see dozens of people swarming around a large encampment. Then he realized that they were his employees.

"It looked like a Vietnam movie," Mr. Cutforth recalled. "Helicopters landing every five minutes, people ducking and running. There are occasionally those moments when you go, 'Oh my God, what has happened that we're doing this?' "

"Treasure Hunters" makes its debut tonight at 8 on NBC. This outsize reality show, in which teams of three race breathlessly around the world solving "Da Vinci Code"-like puzzles, represents a departure for Mr. Cutforth and Ms. Lipsitz. The two executive producers, who formed the company Magical Elves in 2001, have made a name for themselves by running "Top Chef," "Project Runway" and "Project Greenlight," relatively civilized shows in which people compete for rarefied professional opportunities in a single location.

Craig Plestis, NBC's senior vice president for alternative programming and development, knew the Magical Elves from another series they produce for the network, "Last Comic Standing." He said that he hired Mr. Cutforth and Ms. Lipsitz to develop and execute the concept of "Treasure Hunters," a process that took more than a year because its scope was so ambitious. "They are, I can honestly say, my favorite producers," Mr. Plestis said.

"For reality shows it's all about the characters," he continued. Ms. Lipsitz and Mr. Cutforth "were so scrappy when they started, and they had no money, that was the focus: story, characters. They were my first call."

In an interview with the two producers in a Manhattan hotel, Ms. Lipsitz said she thought — as unlikely as it may seem — that the broad, boisterous "Treasure Hunters" had something in common with the pretty and witty "Project Runway." "People who pooh-pooh reality television, hopefully, will find that 'Treasure Hunters' is smart enough that they feel ownership of it," she said. And then there are the genre's staples, which Ms. Lipsitz called "manipulation and back stabbing and all the stuff that causes conflict."

Ms. Lipsitz and Mr. Cutforth met in 1999, when she was an executive at VH1. He came to pitch her a travel show with a music theme, an idea she had heard a thousand times. But though the pitch failed, the two of them — she a sardonic New Yorker, he an affable Briton — got along well. Lauren Zalaznick, who is now the president of Bravo, and was then Ms. Lipsitz's boss at VH1, saw the partnership being born. She said: "When she did meet Dan, and talked about Dan — Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan — I thought, classically: Well, that's good, Jane's going to have a boyfriend. That's terrific."

Instead of dating, Ms. Lipsitz hired Mr. Cutforth to create "Bands on the Run" for VH1, in which rock bands toured the country competing to make the most money. The musicians' drunken escapades failed to attract a large audience, but the project inspired Ms. Lipsitz to quit her VH1 job. "The development stuff was not my thing," she said. "People would come in and pitch me things, and drop names, and I hadn't read Variety in four weeks and didn't know what they were talking about."

(Hearing of Ms. Lipsitz's recollections, Ms. Zalaznick said with a laugh, "She absolutely was not that bad.")

The newly formed Magical Elves' first project was an elaborate reality show-as-thriller for ABC called "The Runner." The idea — as conceived by Live Planet, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's production company — was that a single player would try to elude capture as teams tried to ensnare him. The longer the runner ran, the more money he would win. And it would all play out for the cameras in real time. To ensure it could be done, they shot a pilot episode.

"The whole thing was an absolute logistical nightmare," Mr. Cutforth recalled. "A capture went down right next to a schoolyard and traumatized a whole bunch of children."

In addition, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the project, which was to have its premiere in January 2002, seemed inappropriate, and was scrapped. Ms. Lipsitz said, "Having agents and safe houses, that was the language of our show, and it didn't quite feel like the time to do that."

But "The Runner" did lead to their next job. Live Planet hired Mr. Cutforth and Ms. Lipsitz to produce Season 2 of "Project Greenlight" for HBO, and it was on that show that they developed their signature style. They shot reams of film from which they carved elaborate story arcs in the editing room, along with well-defined characters for the audience to love and hate. Ms. Lipsitz and Mr. Cutforth applied these methods when they took over "Last Comic Standing," and embarked on Bravo's "Top Chef" and "Project Runway" (the last of which yielded them an Emmy nomination last year, as did the third season of "Project Greenlight," which appeared on Bravo).

Ms. Zalaznick said that creating compelling reality television was a "weird, new production niche," and that the Magical Elves had mastered it. She wants them to expand. "I've told Jane that if I could take a sabbatical," she said, "I would come in and C.O.O. their company. There's not enough time for them to figure out where they want to go."

Their schedule does seem overwhelming. Tonight's premiere of "Treasure Hunters" is the fourth Magical Elves show on television since December, when "Project Runway" began its second season. That was followed by "Top Chef," then "Last Comic Standing." And the cycle begins anew: season 3 of "Project Runway" starts next month.

They are also fielding offers for theatrical distribution of "Air Guitar Nation," a documentary about air-guitar-playing contests. It was directed by Ms. Lipsitz's sister, Alexandra, and won the audience award at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Tex., in March.

Mr. Cutforth said: "As we started putting together the documentary, it became a sports movie: like 'Miracle,' or something like that. It's kind of absurd. But people really like it."

They would also like to venture into scripted television, and are developing ideas now with the little time they have to spare. Ms. Lipsitz said: "With reality, you never know what you're going to get. The story unfolds in the edit room. It would be a nice, new challenge for us to come up with a story in advance and shoot it."

A version of this article appears in print on , on page AR18 of the New York edition with the headline: When Jane Met Dan, It Was Reality TV at First Sight. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe